


Tetronimoes

by Arduinna



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/F, Fluff, Yuletide, Yuletide 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arduinna/pseuds/Arduinna
Summary: "Let's see where the balloon takes us."





	Tetronimoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grevling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grevling/gifts).



Frankie leaned into Grace, smiling as she looked out at the ground slipping past beneath them. The tightness in her chest was easing with every breath, each one deeper and slower than the last. It was almost hypnotic, the slowly shifting landscape below and the sound of the burners working away above them to keep the balloon aloft, and she drifted willingly along with it, opening herself up to the experience with an almost desperate gratitude. She knew she’d been freaked out, but hadn’t realized quite how much until just now, when she was breathing freely for the first time since that awful moment the doctor had said “stroke”. 

Now, though, she could take a mental step back to take stock of what she was feeling and why, the comfort of the familiar act helping to calm her even more. She’d recovered from devastating revelations before, from infertility to infidelity, and a little infirmity wasn’t going to keep her down. 

She took another deep breath as new patterns started to form, and let it out on a long, gentle exhale as they began forming a different shape for her life, blinking herself back into her body as her mind settled into working things out.

Grace was thrumming a little beside her. “Still scared?” Frankie asked, tightening her arm in a brief squeeze. 

“Yes,” Grace admitted with a little laugh. “Not as much as I thought I would be, though. Not with you here. It’s actually a little exhilarating.”

“Exhilarating,” Frankie repeated, tasting the sound of it. “I was thinking more relaxing, but exhilarating works, too.”

“You were pretty quiet there for a while,” Grace said. “Relaxing?”

“Yup. And thinking.”

“Oh? How’d that go?”

Frankie grinned. So subtle. “It’s still going – there’s a lot to think about. But while the Tetris pieces of my life may be a bit more jagged, I think I can find ways to make it all still fit together.”

“Well. Okay, good. I assume.” There was a fond chuckle under the words, not the stinging sarcasm there would have been years ago, and Grace’s eyes were warm and indulgent.

“It is good,” Frankie agreed. “I really needed something like this, Grace. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think -- thank you.” It came out more intensely than she’d meant, with much deeper emotion behind it, and she turned to grip both of Grace’s hands in hers. 

For a second Grace seemed to be on the edge of saying something light to ease the moment, and Frankie almost held her breath, waiting to see what happened. But Grace was nothing if not brave, and squeezed her hands back. “You’re welcome,” she said simply. “You know there’s pretty much nothing I wouldn’t do for you, right?”

“I know.” She did know, down to her bones. Frankie went very still as the Tetris pieces in her mind slotted more firmly into place, her hands going slack in Grace’s grip. “It’s not a new pattern.”

“What? Frankie, look at me, you’re scaring me,” Grace said sharply. “Can you hear me?”

“I’m sorry, I’m here – I can hear you. I promise it’s not a stroke.”

“Thank God.” Grace slumped against the side of the basket, paler than usual, and actually ran her hands through her hair. 

“I just figured something out.”

“’It’s not a new pattern’.” 

“Yes!”

“Frankie, what the hell does that mean?”

“I’m not going to Santa Fe.” 

“Why didn’t I bring booze?” Grace lamented. “Frankie. You’re not making any sense. Tell me what’s going on.”

Frankie laughed, sweeping her arms out to encompass the sky. “I’m not going to Santa Fe!”

“So help me, I am going to throw you out of this basket.”

“I was thinking about what you said earlier, how I love someone who loves me back.”

“Right, which is why you _should_ go to Santa Fe. I also said that.”

Frankie wagged her finger at Grace, grinning. “Nope.”

“You owe me the biggest, driest martini on the planet.”

“How about champagne?”

“FRANKIE!”

“Okay, okay! Sorry. It’s just, it’s all so clear now, and everything feels so right, I just want to – “ Frankie swayed, leaning to echo the curve of the balloon above them, arms floating on the wind.

“No dancing in the basket! It’s a rule.”

“It is not.” She stopped, though. It probably was a rule somewhere, and she didn’t want to be banned from future flights. 

“It is too. I just made it up. Besides, you were almost telling me what’s going on.”

“Right. Okay, so, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been a little freaked out lately.”

Grace grinned. “Right. Me too. I think we covered that part.”

“Right. I mean, I like spontaneity, but I’m not so keen on chaos. I want to be able to choose when to be spontaneous, not have spontaneity thrust upon me.”

“With you so far,” Grace said encouragingly.

“And this stroke thing, that’s been pretty chaotic. And worse than that, it’s chaos that takes away my ability to be spontaneous. I have to watch what I eat, I have to take all kinds of pills, I have to stand and walk but only just enough, I have to take my stupid blood pressure – it’s a kind of prison for me.”

Grace reached out and caught Frankie’s hands again. “I know, and I’m so sorry.”

Frankie squeezed her hands, and didn’t let go. “But before all that, and sort of underneath all that, I think I’ve been feeling for a while that I was ready for my life to take a new turn.”

Grace’s fingers went tense, but her voice was steady. “Jacob.”

“That’s what I thought,” Frankie agreed. She brushed her thumbs over the backs of Grace’s hands. “I mean, Jacob’s great. But –” she hesitated, not sure how to explain this.

“But?”

“What I was thinking about earlier was that my life is settling into a new pattern. But just now, I realized – it’s not a new pattern. It’s just a shift in perspective on an existing pattern that’s been changing all along, so I can see it more clearly now.”

“Frankie…”

“I love someone who loves me back. Someone who takes care of me, and helps me not to be afraid of things, and who does things she’s afraid of to make me happy.”

“ _Frankie_...”

“I know this is sort of sudden and I completely understand if this thing we have stays where it’s been, but I gotta tell ya, I think I’m all-in on this. Partners to the end, however you want to define that.”

“Frankie, would you for God’s sake shut up?” Grace tipped her head forward to rest her forehead against Frankie’s, then pulled back long enough to frame Frankie’s face in her hands and lean in for a long, heartfelt kiss.

“I love someone who loves me back, too,” Grace said softly.

Some discreet rustling behind them from the balloon operator reminded them that they weren’t alone, and with a shared grin, they settled back into their spots against the basket, looking out into a brand new world, fingers tangling comfortably together.


End file.
